For A Team With Heart, Postseason Ban Weighs Heavy

UConn coach Kevin Ollie has a few words with Shabazz Napier during a timeout… (STEPHEN DUNN, Hartford…)

February 01, 2013|Jeff Jacobs

PROVIDENCE — — You watch a team so badly outrebounded. You watch a team destroyed on the offensive boards. You watch big man after big man head to the bench with five fouls. You see that team outscored by 13 points on the free throw line.

And afterward you see that team's coach, Kevin Ollie, look over at George Blaney, who at 73 has been around the game since, geez, almost Naismith. And you hear Ollie say, "I don't think he'll ever see a stat sheet like this one … I didn't have a 5 man or 4 man left at the end of the game, but we had each other."

And then you walk away from Ollie after this 82-79 overtime triumph over Providence and you say to yourself, what a shame he can't bring this team to New York for that special week in March. What a shame he can't bring this team to Madison Square Garden for one last lick at ACC-bound Syracuse and Pittsburgh in the Big East tournament. One last lick at a Syracuse team the Huskies battled forever and that special night with six overtimes when the game did last forever. One last lick against a Pitt team, too, the one that always seems to dress guys suited more for the Steelers. Yeah, one last lick against a team that has played classics against UConn when it mattered most.

It's a shame. It's a damn shame.

And I'm going to argue it's unfair.

This was the game UConn lost last year at Providence. This was the game when the Huskies blew a 14-point lead with a team with far greater talent and far less heart. Don't take it from me. Take it from somebody on the floor.

"Last year's team, when it got tough like that, when they made all those runs, we would have folded," said Ryan Boatright, who led UConn with 19 points. "We didn't have the heart. We didn't have the leadership we've got this year. Me and Shabazz took the leadership role and know from the experience of last year. This year, man, it's a whole 'nother team."

It starts with the first-year coach, half-gnarled NBA survivor, half preacher man, all Husky. The coach, who on this night looked at a 28-5 deficit on the offensive boards, a conference record-tying deficit of 31 rebounds overall [55-24], and sure enough found another Ollie-ism: "We dug deep and we found something that was in our reserve tank. I always tell the guys to push to the second mile, because there's not a lot of traffic on the second mile."

The fuel trickles down through those irresistible guards. This team has many shortcomings, but determination isn't one of them. In the words of their former coach, they've got plenty of tick-tock.

This was the game last year when you felt, wow, the Huskies with Andre Drummond, Jeremy Lamb, Alex Oriakhi, Roscoe Smith, don't really deserve to play in the postseason. They would right the ship enough to get one game in the NCAA Tournament, but it was a tough team to love. Well, this year's team is impossible not to love. It's a shame the season has to end March 9 with a regular season finale at home against PC.

"The closer it gets to March," Boatright said, "the madder I get. I was just talking to the team yesterday, saying I honestly feel if we got to the [NCAA] tournament we could have made some serious noise. I know a lot of teams that are pretty happy they don't have to play us in the postseason. We could be real scary."

If the season ended today, the Huskies, 14-5, would be something like an eight seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Look, few people have been any harder than I have been on Jim Calhoun and UConn for flubbing it in the classroom. We've plowed that printed road a thousand times. I also have consistently argued that the latest data is the fairest data and ultimately the NCAA decided not to use the latest data in banning UConn from the 2013 tournament.

The NCAA has a bunch of logistical reasons for not doing it. Too many schools. Too many sports. Too many different marking periods. Some I buy. Some I don't buy. But the NCAA, flawed as it is, has its rules and ultimately decided it would ban teams in 2013 based on data that ended with the spring semester 2011.

The NCAA ship sailed long ago. But the Big East puzzles me. On March 7, the Big East presidents agreed conceptually that any team ruled ineligible for NCAA postseason play would likewise not be able to play in conference championships. The policy was adopted at the presidents meeting Nov. 13 in Chicago.

"Conferences have made decisions on matters, but there's no precedent that I know of on the application of this new APR rule [adopted in 2011]," Herbst said in early December. This is new territory. It's our decision.

"We think the conference should show solidarity and collegiality and needs to support its members. They should all re-examine it. We made our appeals. We made great arguments. We've made them regardless of conference realignment, but with our losses to the Big East we need all hands on deck. Show we're a great conference."